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Seminar of the UBC Commission on Urban Planning

THE CUP 10TH ANNIVERSARY SEMINAR IN TURKU

In the end of September the Commission on Urban Planning had a very special chance to enjoy Turku in beautiful autumn weather. The Commission had its 10th Anniversary seminar "Cultural Planning - Urban DNA" on 24th-27th September in Forum Marinum, maritime museum and information centre close to the medieval Turku Castle. The first CUP seminar was in Malmö in October 1998 during a heavy storm. Since then the CUP has gone through changes, being now a constantly expanding network of urban planners from all around the Baltic Sea.

The Turku seminar was festive not only because of the anniversary. The seminar theme was connected to the fact that Turku will be European Cultural Capital in 2011 together with Tallinn. Therefore the seminar workshops concentrated in analysing the Urban DNA of our host town using a very useful method that was introduced by Mrs Lia Ghiraldi of Noema Research and Planning from London. The seminar participants were shown Turku from many sides and every workshop then noted that Turku is a city of contrasts with old and new buildings, mixing 1800th century architecture with very modern new houses - a good example being the brand new enlargement of the Turku Main Li-brary - and also with a duality of different generations. It was noticed that Turku is a pleasantly slow and calm city - some seminar partici-pants said that Turku is Heaven on Earth, especially on a quiet Friday evening after sauna. We had a chance to bathe in sauna in a unique resort called Herrankukkaro in Rymättylä - an experience that every seminar participant will remember for a long time!

The Turku seminar was also the annual meeting of the Commission on Urban Planning. The City of Malmö is the Lead Partner in a project ap-plication called Visual Cities made to the Interreg BSR. The CUP is waiting for the results of the project evaluations at the end of October 2008, because EU financing would help studying the creating of virtual models of city plans and also to study more the theme of Sustainable and Attractive Cities. It was agreed that even if the application for pro-ject financing wouldn't succeed the Commission on Urban Planning will continue the seminars combining lectures and workshops and studying the themes mentioned before. The "ABC Method" of working together and talking openly about good and bad experiences has proved to be very effective and interesting to people working in the field of urban planning.

The Commission on Urban Planning will have its next seminar in Gdansk on April 2nd-4th, 2009.
Sirpa Kallio
Chairperson of the UBC Commission on Urban Planning
City of Helsinki Economic and Planning Centre
tel. +358 9 310 36124
sirpa.kallio@hel.fi

PICTURE: The Turku seminar participants


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